News & Events

The Reverend James Lawson admits that it sometimes troubles him when people view him as a living artifact of the civil rights movement, especially because he has been arrested for civil disobedience more times in the last 10 years than he ever was during the 1950s and 60s. Read more about Lawson Continues Nonviolent Protests

In a spirit of overcoming traditions of institutional suspicion and stereotype, Harvard Divinity School administrators, professors, and students met recently at HDS with an eight-person delegation of administrators, professors, and students from Baylor University, the large, prominent Baptist institution in Waco, Texas. Read more about Baylor University Delegation Visits HDS

It's probably safe to say there aren't many 25-year-olds who have been responsible for organizing a Harvard-wide conference on a hot topic (Islam in America), creating their own publishing company, and discovering an important scholarly treasure, the 1873 autobiography of an African Muslim ex-slave who spent the last years of his life starting schools for black children in Alabama. Yet a Harvard Divinity School student has done all this and more. Read more about Student Profile: Precious Muhammad

After waiting his turn to take part in a question-and-answer session during the "Islam in America" conference at Harvard last weekend, a young man approached the microphone, introduced himself, and said, "I'm a Muslim, and therefore, by definition, I'm a feminist." Read more about Islam in America: Lessons in Diversity

Visiting Professor Ahmed Toufiq presented the lecture "The Friday Sermon: Searching for a Modern Speech in Orthodox Islam" on Tuesday, March 13, 2001, in the Sperry Room of Andover Hall. His lecture was the first public event in the expanding program in Islamic religious studies at Harvard Divinity School. Read more about Ahmed Toufiq: Modern Speech in Orthodox Islam

As debate flurries around President George W. Bush's establishment of a federal office of faith-based and community action, Who Will Provide? The Changing Role of Religion in American Social Welfare , a recently published collection of essays that derives from an interfaculty seminar organized by Harvard Divinity School, explores the opportunities—and the dangers—of government support of faith-based initiatives. Read more about The U.S. and Faith-Based Social Initiatives

For the first time, the World Economic Forum has invited religious and spiritual leaders, as well as experts on religion, to be part of its annual meeting, which is being held this year January 28-31 in Davos, Switzerland. Read more about Falsina, Little at World Economic Forum

James L. Kugel, Harry Starr Professor of Classical and Modern Jewish and Hebrew Literature at Harvard University and member of the Faculty of Divinity, won the 2001 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book, The Bible as It Was. Read more about James Kugel Wins Grawemeyer Award

Robert Orsi, who has taught in the department of religious studies at Indiana University for the last 12 years, has accepted Harvard Divinity School’s invitation to become the Charles Warren Professor of American Religious History, pending approval by the University's Governing Boards. He will join the Faculty of Divinity in September 2001.